


The Witches of MI6

by beaubete, Venstar



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bond WIP Amnesty, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 17:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11294970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venstar/pseuds/Venstar
Summary: An old spell made in a youthful temper, an old sea witch managing in a new era, alone and broken.  Old and new clash together within MI6.





	1. Dinosaurs and War Tactics

**Author's Note:**

> For @beaubete. This was written for the 2017 WIP Amnesty, where scraps, bits and bobs, ideas or other types of WIPs were offered up, donated and then adopted by someone else to finish. Beau gave me a snippet called Magic Man and this is my burnt offering on the altar of the writing gods. may they have mercy on my soul.

 

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

It was repeated over and over and over in his head. He had no idea who needed finding and it was driving him mad. He searched and searched, but there was nothing. No one. For him. He tried, but no one fit. He thought he came close, but that was a mistake.

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me..._

James Bond was a walking, talking, festering, open wound. He had been for awhile. New recruits could smell it on him, and like chum to the sharks, it drew them in. They'd try to take a piece out of him, circling, circling, waiting for the right time to strike, but he'd just smile that toothy grin, flash his flat blue eyes and eat them, sometimes leaving nothing for M.

As he had discovered, you can’t kiss a soul better, but you can make it bleed. Flesh pressed against his, had the same effect, over and over. Emptiness. Nothing. A hole where a heart should be. At some point, he stopped seeing the blood that poured from it.

How do you put it back together?

M watched and waited. For what he wasn't sure, she was hard to read. Perhaps an ending to his time, a conclusion to his life or maybe she was surprised to see that he'd made it this far.

A misogynistic dinosaur. A Cold War relic.

Words chosen with surgical precision to slice at his ego.

He didn't understand the need for the words. He was a machine, built and forged by MI6, to get the job done, by any means necessary. So what if some of those means had soft skin and lush curves. And what if water didn’t answer him at all and other things tugged at him?

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me..._

Misogynistic dinosaur.

Cold War relic.

So what did that make M, if not the same product of the same machine. A witch without power.

It was always the same day in and out, over and over, full of nothing, not since Vesper. He’d made mistakes. With his job, with his heart. That horrid, wretched thing that had opened itself and then realizing how wrong it was, closed itself off. He couldn’t trust it. It almost betrayed him. If he could have killed it, he would have. Traitors must be dealt with harshly.

He had pulled himself out of that watery grave in Venice and stood, shredded and torn. Betrayal will do that, can do that. It leaves behind scars one can’t see. Water is a giving and taking element, but it can only fix so much, after you use it to destroy. And oh, how he had used it to lay waste to the men who had led Vesper to betray him. His spell got out of control, as he became out of control, the ebb, the flow, altogether prevented him from saving Vesper.

The sea wouldn’t answer his call. There was no help from it. What he had done, he could not undo and the building sank beneath him, locking Vesper away. She was trapped and he was cast out, shunned by his own kind after that first fall and when he made the second one, into a second watery grave under a bridge, no one answered. He was alone.

A sea witch on his own.

And that tasted bitter. No help, no family.

_Find me…_

_Find me..._

_Find me..._

Nothing there. Empty.

No one else could, or would put him together. Perhaps they didn't think themselves stupid enough to try. Perhaps Bond didn't think himself stupid enough to accept the help. He had been wrong before.

Until a powerful mage came along, and it was like a bolt of lightning to the sand, a jolt to have a fellow witch, but not a sea witch. His magic was odd, complicated. Bond’s was simple. But Q’s job was to keep them safe, protect them. It had been awhile since someone had protected Bond.

He studied the new Quartermaster with a wariness reserved for a mark, soon to be dead the minute they step into the cross-hairs.

Not even M could protect Q from what was to come.

She had tried to warn him with the same words she had stabbed into Bond.

“He’s a misogynistic dinosaur. A relic of the cold war. A blunt instrument.”

There was absolutely nothing more favorable she could have inadvertently said about Bond to trigger the new Quartermaster’s interest, other than those exact words. Dinosaur, relic, cold war and instrument. She mistook his raised eyebrows as shock when confronted bluntly with what he could expect.

But dinosaurs, the cold war, archaeology and any sort of instrument, weaponized or blunt, were things the Quartermaster truly enjoyed. He had books, upon books, upon books about those subjects.

“Magic is rare in these halls. Rare, but not uncommon. I suspect a few people lie about it, but you’re definitely our first…” M’s voice trailed off.

“Mage?” The new Q’s soft voice filled in her sentence. He was used to people fearing what he was. It was a natural response to a natural talent.

M gave a delicate snort. “I was going to say Quartermaster, who looks like they just earned their long pants. But yes, you’ll be our first, youngest Quartermaster, who is also a Mage. Don’t think that’s why you got this job. If you think that, well then, I’ve hired the wrong man...Mage.”

“I’ll do my best not to let you down.” Q said, his words firm and promising. No one had actively sought out a Mage of his level along with his other skill set before, for espionage purposes. It would either be a success or a disaster. Q was eager to see what came of it.

“See that you don’t, or I’ll be forced to eat one of my desk ornaments.”

“Yes, M.” A smile tugged at the corner of Q’s lips, he couldn’t imagine anyone forcing M to do what she didn’t want to do.

M continued to speak to him, informing him of expectations and how to make himself more comfortable in a department built on fact, science, technology and deception, rather than the more earthly arts of Magic. “You’ll have free rein, within standard working and security limits, to create your...atelier, as you would call it, however you like it. I dare say what passes for what we’ve assigned for the Quartermaster’s office down here, won’t suit you.”

“I’ve had worse.” Q said, his voice dry and crisp as he studied the walls of Churchill’s old bunker. He touched the brick. Good, he would be exposed to a bit of dust and dirt, not a completely sterile environment.

M nodded. “Haven’t we all.”

“Looks promising.” Q said, he dusted his fingers along his checked trousers.

And then Q found out what it actually meant, to put his spelled equipment in the hands of one of MI6’s many agents. And then he got to experience the joy that 007 was. It’s possible dinosaurs aren’t so stupid.

It’s also possible that Q would return to his books on dinosaurs and war tactics in order to understand his malfunctioning piece of agent.

Then one day, after Silva, there was no M, to advise and watch, and wait.  There was only Mallory, and he had no experience with Bond, save for watching the agent come back broken, not necessarily repaired.  

“Oh dear.”  Q said, and his equipment in even worse disrepair.  

Bond would return his equipment again and again.  He would also return his body to MI6, again and again.  Burnt and bitter as his returned equipment.  Dinosaurs are especially rough on equipment, Q discovered.

At first, Bond used Q’s equipment with doubt, but they worked, until he needed them not to, so he applied his skill set of magic, to make them what he needed.  Q wasn’t fond of his equipment being in Bond’s hands.  Too often, the carefully crafted spells went awry.  

“Dammit Bond.” Q’s voice would come over the comm line as something else was destroyed or used for another purpose than it was originally created.  “Walthers are NOT for blowing up hallways!”

And Bond would smile at his trick, but he was alive, by his own means and Q’s...hijacked magic.  

Q would sigh and carry away the cremated remains, those proud little soldiers had saved his agent, so he wasn’t too bothered.  

Q’s magic though, was complicated and purposefully crafted to be exact.  How much was the man like his spells?  Curiosity entered Bond, like a hook into a fish, and he began to investigate, to poke and prod.   

_Find me..._

_Find me..._

_Find me..._

He ignored the call and began to snoop and sneak and bother, if we’re calling a pot, a pot and a kettle, a kettle.

The Quartermaster would walk away, cradling and whispering terms of endearments to his unsalvageable equipment, said, saved agent would remain at his back, studying him.

Q would again study his books for answers to Bond and Bond would study the human factor of Q, to find his answers.


	2. Danger

Pale, bony, perpetual bed head, constantly distracted but always focused.  If there was danger, Q was on it.  If there was no danger, Q hardly paid attention to his surroundings.  Bond had accidentally brushed his shoulder, hovered too close and not even a blink.  One time, Q had even turned and bumped his nose into Bond.  His reaction?  Push his glasses up his nose, smile and side step him, continuing on his way to his office.    
  
I AM THE DANGER.  Bond had wanted to yell at his seemingly fragile backside.  I AM THE DANGER.  Why am I not the danger?  
  
An important question.  It caught his attention.  His head tilted this way and that.  He studied the Quartermaster more.    
  
Some would have called it unhealthy.  
  
Bond called it necessary.  He kept his studies limited to whenever he was at MI6.  If he felt it necessary, he would figure Q out after hours.

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

It wouldn’t stop, can a person go mad from longing?

Q should be glad that Bond decided following him one day sounded like great fun.  If he hadn’t, Bond wouldn’t have stumbled across some drunk lads bullying a box of kittens.  The mom was nowhere to be seen, and now Bond had a pocketful of cats.  Kittens, to be correct.  Bond peered around the corner, Q was gone.  
  
Bond slid back through the shadows, comfortable in them as if they were his second home and padded quietly away, with mewling pockets.  

The shopkeeper was extremely delighted to help a well dressed, handsome customer with kittens in his pockets.  Bond set them on the counter and they cavorted as one of the cashiers was dispatched to fetch the items that would keep a cat alive for the night, until he could do better.  
  
00 agents do not look hip and cool, carrying cat litter and cat boxes, but Bond didn’t care.  Cabs would still take him wherever he wanted to go.  
  
At home, he stared at the kittens as they wandered around his bathroom.  He had no names for them, he knew none and he had learned long ago, not to name things.  Keeping things...well...he knew there was always a lack of permanency.  He closed the bathroom door, thinking to amend his will to include two cats...kittens.  
  
He lay tossing and turning as the kittens meowed and meowed, unhappy to be in the bathroom.  He threw a pillow across the room.  
  
“QUIET!”  He bellowed.  The kittens quieted and he flopped back down.  He felt guilty until they started meowing again, and then he felt defeated.  He pulled on a pair of sleep pants and padded to the door.  He cracked it open and a shadow came creeping out.  Shadow.  The first kitten, inky grey with blue eyes.  Meow purrrp, meow, meow.  The second cat...kitten came tiptoeing out, an exact copy of the first, but shyer.  He made no sound, merely followed his brother.    
  
“Copy-that and Shadow.”  Bond murmured.  He had named them.  “Come on,” he said, snagging his pillow off the floor.  “But just for one night.  When you get used to being here, you go back in there, understand?”  
  
The kittens mewed and followed him to his bed. They wound around his ankles.  He picked them up and placed them on the pillow next to his and tried to go back to sleep.  
  
It was hours before he woke up, which was strange for him.  He lay blinking up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what was wrong.  He tilted his head.  The kittens had climbed onto his pillow in the middle of the night at some point and were now wrapped around his head, purring.  
  
He heaved a sigh.  So undignified.  He rose and with a purring meow, the kittens slid back off the pillow.    
  
“Sorry boys.  Time to get up, we’ve got work to do.”  
  
Calisthenics in the living room became oh so much more difficult to do with curious kittens.  Cleaning a gun at the kitchen table became a challenge.  Urinating with an audience presence, had never bothered him, but this time, it ended up in kitten bath time and that DID bother him.  Cats...kittens, don’t like baths.  More scars appeared on his hands.

Going into work, didn’t make it better.  His freshly scarred hands flexed into fists as M spoke.  He hid the reflex by checking his watch.  
  
Mallory had taken his reins into his hands and put him on mandatory leave.    
  
00 agents don’t like being put on hold.  
  
“I need you sane and whole.”

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me..._  
  
If Mallory knew, perhaps he wouldn’t think him sane.  A smile, that’s what he gave in response.  “If I were sane, you wouldn’t want me.”  
  
“Be that as it may, I need whatever it is you have left...whole.”  Mallory said, awkwardly flicking his fingers up and down Bond.  
  
“Tired of breaking your favorite toy.”  
  
“I don’t have favorites, 007.  Are you fishing for compliments or reassurances?  I’ll give you neither, you know that.”  Mallory said, his eyes returning to his paperwork.  “Oh, stop by Q-branch.  I believe the Quartermaster wants a word with you.  I received a very interesting request.  Something about hmmm...hang on, let me pull the document up.  Ah, there it is.  He refuses to send you out with anything but unspelled chewing gum and cheap duct tape.  I wonder what that’s all about.  Also, not using equipment properly.  How much have you cost me lately Bond?”  Mallory flashed a small smile.  ‘Dismissed.”

Always wary of being sent to someone who did want to speak to him, Bond took a circuitous route, taking longer than necessary to travel to Q’s labyrinth of a laboratory/herbarium/atelier

A circuitous route, an excuse for sneaking up and snooping on Q, before he made his presence known.  

Q missed the former M.  A formidable woman, who had known the ins and outs of all the personalities within MI6.  Now Mallory, was left to discover what had taken her canny mind a lifetime to discover and then put to efficient use.  MI6 was stumbling as Mallory found his feet.

Too many times, Bond’s equipment had mysteriously blown up or gone awry and Q finally filed a request to stop arming him.  He couldn’t hit the send button fast enough, he didn’t care what Mallory would say...of course he does.  Mallory speaks of Bond with almost a sort of awe; the former M had spoke as if of a particularly wayward, though favoured, son.    Q chewed on his bottom lip briefly and glared at his monitor.  No answer from Mallory to his request.  No email telling him, “no” or “let’s talk.”  Nothing but silence.  To fill it, he spoke.

“An old dinosaur who can’t keep his equipment functioning properly!”  Q breathed harshly into the air, not addressing anyone in particular, after the third explosion that SHOULD NOT have happened, ever.  He would need a new night guard...or a better spelled night guard, he was going to lose one of his crowns due to the teeth grinding he knew he must be doing.  “Of all the...HOW!”  

Usually, he had the opposite problem.  He’s had agents acting out in petulant, childish ways as they refused to use the things he made for them.  Perhaps Bond saw their non-use as payment for destroying his equipment.  A medieval twisted sense of accounting.  Unfortunately, Bond’s penchant for all things that go boom, has kept the man alive, even if he was mysteriously destroying Q’s hard work.  The other agents, stubborn in their refusal to use perfectly good spelled equipment sometimes had to learn a harder way...through their deaths.  

“Spare the spell, delete a life.  Use the spell, spare a life.”  He mumbled to himself.  “I should put that on a poster.”

He learned long ago to stop sending ears with those agents--listening to a man drowning in his own blood and knowing he could have saved him takes its toll.

Q picked up a broken hair dryer off his work bench and began to take off it’s casing.  He set the heating element to the side, near a pile of other broken knick-knacks and various sized terracotta pots filled with plants that shouldn’t go together, but managed to live in harmony in Q’s homely atelier.  Several repurposed pot racks and dodgy wooden ladders criss-crossed the ceiling, ivies, tools, pots, pans and his cats all lived merrily above the floor in a perfect tangle.

His spell should have worked perfectly.  But Bond--trust Bond to learn enough to game the system.  The man who was a constant mystery himself, came knocking on Q’s atelier.  Q didn’t need him to identify himself, he knew who it was, by the hair standing up at the back of his neck.  Bond had probably been lurking somewhere in the depths of Q branch.  If Q looked back through the security feeds, he’d be able to prove his theory.

He didn’t bother turning around.

“Double-oh Seven.”  Q’s words were spoken softly and with precision, as he continued to take apart the hair dryer.  He would be lying if he said he wasn’t imagining that it was Bond he was trying to take apart.  Q glared at Bond from under his drooping fringe.  Cool as a cucumber with a bit of a black eye and stubble edging his jaw.  Q pushed his glasses up his nose.  Yes.  What would it be like to take Bond apart.

In his dry, bored beyond belief voice, Bond further insulted Q.  “Little witch upon the hedge, which witch are you?  Which witch are you and what can you do?”

Without meaning to, Q’s shoulders rose to his ears, he was sure they turned pink.  His lips compressed into a severe line, as the old playground song, a lifetime of childhood bullies had sung as they chased him around, came out in Bond’s quiet singing voice.  Q had never heard Bond sing before...but whatever!  He replied to the ignorant bastard with an equally bored voice.

“Get bent.”  Q turned away, picking up a warding spell from the workbench.  He fiddled with it for a moment before glancing back at Bond.  Bond was frowning something ferocious.  Q figured it would have frightened anyone else, but he supplied Bond with his equipment and that was a scarier job.

“I beg your pardon?”  Bond said, his voice low and dangerous.

Q continued to ignore him, the warding spell much more important, to get it to work and perhaps save an agent.  An agent that listened and used their equipment properly.  Lost in thought, Q absentmindedly replied.  “Bent.  Penile fracture.  I’ve heard they’re painful.  I’m telling you to fuck off.”

“You have no right—”

“I believe you’ll find I do.  Quartermaster remember.  Head of Q branch.”  Q shook his finger in Bond’s direction.  “Captain of all I survey.”  Q returned his attention to the spell and considered it for a moment.  If he added brick dust...but would that make the spell too brittle?  It was a constant problem, using the broken form of something known for strength.  Would it break or hold?  He banged the spell on the workbench.

Bond’s laughter is sudden, startling, bright.  “Little witch, what can’t you do?”

Q sighed, placing the spell on the workbench.  “Little witch,” he mumbles.  “Obviously.”  He spoke up loud enough for Bond to hear.

“Not what—”

“--you expected, yes, I know.”  Q rolled his eyes with his back still to Bond.  He moved his mouth in a wordless, “blah, blah, blah.”

“Psychic?” Bond asked, brow cocked.

“No.”

“You know, you’re cleverer than you look.”  Bond said, an impatient drawl to his voice.

“Still, better than looking cleverer than you are.”  And it’s not quite banter; Bond’s not a sparkling wit, but it’s more human interaction than Q’s had in awhile.  The corner of his mouth curled  around a smile, Bond couldn’t see it, so it doesn’t matter.  

“You told Mallory you weren’t sending me out with anything else.  You aren’t allowed to do that,” Bond says, as if he should have had access to Q’s contract and files.  Technically, he’d be right, if he were right—

“No.  I asked him if I could stop providing spells to you when all you do is waste my intent and blow them up.  Do you have any idea how much will goes into crafting the perfect listening spell, the most effective notice-me-not?” Q’s voice bit out, precise and quiet, barely carrying over his shoulder.  It forced Bond to step closer.  “I don’t even know how you made a completely passive far-seeing eye spell explode.  It’s not natural.  You’re not natural.”

“I’m all natural!” Bond protested.

The snort that escaped Q at that, was all natural and far too close to real laughter for his own comfort.  He compressed his lips against that sound and glared at Bond again, but that damned smile that Bond kept in his pockets for oddly timed situations popped back out; Bond’s eyes twinkled.

Damn that old dinosaur for it’s charm.

“There was nothing explosive in that spell.  Nothing at all!”  Q cut the air with his hand, emphasizing the nothing part of his sentence.  He ticked off his fingers, to list off the ingredients to prove Bond wrong.  “Belladonna, for sight; feverfew—”

“--eye of newt—” Bond continued smoothly for him.  

Q frowned, his fingers hanging in mid-air.  “Don’t interrupt.  Primrose petals; water poured through the natural hole in a stone—”

“--frogs’ breath—”

“I swear to god, Bond,” Q warned him.  “--copper shavings; about an inch of fibre optic cable—”

“How much spell did you need?” Bond interrupts again.

“I’m going to hex you.”  Q held up the warding spell.  Now would be an excellent time to test out his addition of brick dust.

“Oh!  I’d like to try life as a cat.”  Bond replied, his hands adjust his cuffs.  “They have nine lives, so I hear and sleep all day.  I could go for that.”

“You don’t deserve to be a cat,” Q said sharply, sniffing.  As if summoned, his own tired tabbies, Peaseblossom and Mustardseed melted silkily out of the shadows.  Traitors, all, they swarmed Bond curiously, sniffing at his shoes and the hem of his trousers before stretching up to beg for pats and scritches.  Q tried to keep himself from sounding surly as he spoke, “Those things don’t even know how to explode.  You _taught_ it to them and then made them do it.”

“I don’t know how I could “teach” a fibre optic cable to explode, as you call it.  If you could teach me to manage it, I should like to know.  It would make my missions in the future much shorter, I’d think,” Bond said, dutifully rubbing under first one fuzzy chin and then the other.  Peaseblossom busied herself marking Bond’s ankles as her property while her brother was getting treated, and when their turns switched, Mustardseed went back over to stake his own claim.

“He’s going to think no one ever pets you!” Q’s voice drawled out plaintively; Mustardseed gave him a lazy, reproachful look as he flumped gracefully over Bond’s foot.  “Ugh.  No.  I will not teach you how to teach fibre optic cables to explode.  That’s the very definition of the worst idea ever.  Invading Russia in the winter?  That’s a lark.  A knife at a gun fight?  Child’s play.  Teaching James Bond how to teach things to blow up?  No fucking chance.  I don’t even understand how—” Q’s voice trailed off as he waved his hands in the empty air.  “I have a reputation and you are ruining it!”

Bond leered at Q for a half second, before he returned to paying attention to the cats, not his Quartermaster.

Q studied the top of Bond’s head.  Salt was dashed through the once bright blonde hair.  An old dinosaur.  Even old dinosaurs have enough power left in them to cause some damage.  “You don’t need to be turned into a cat, do you.”

“How do you mean?”  Bond asked, his hands stilled on Moonblossom.

“Magic is rare in these halls.”  Q murmured to himself.

Bond’s head popped up at Q’s quiet voice.  Eyes clashed and the two of them studied each other.  Bond wondered if Q could see him, what he was.  Did he recognize like or was Bond’s magic so unsupported that it disappeared completely.  

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me..._

It was stronger in this moment and Bond was drawn forward, lured in by...

“Eyes the color of blue, deep as the sea and just as wide…”  Q’s voice rang out boldly, surprising Bond for a moment.  “Sorry.  You just reminded me of something I heard ages ago.”

Bond rose from where he was crouched and approached Q.

Ignoring the danger again.  Again.  Bond was nearly touching Q, the bagginess of Q’s slacks brushed his own fitted trousers.  There was no fear, merely annoyance, a touch of curiosity and hands that couldn’t remain still.  

“Do you want to know…” Bond asked, his voice trailing off.  He watched Q for an expected reaction.  None came, but the steady blink of moss green eyes and a hand that pushed up a pair of spectacles.

“Know what?”  Q asked.  

Ah, the voice was telling.  Husky, rich.  A level Bond hadn’t heard before, it was familiar.

He stepped away.  “Oh, it’s simple, really: I just corrupt the spell.”  Bond said it with a bland casualty to his tone, the same voice he might use to recommend adding a twist of lemon to your tea or using brown sauce on your eggs in the morning--everyone knows these things, obviously; how could Q have been the last to learn about this?  The last in the whole world?

And then the husky voice, carrying memories disappeared and a very stern, cross and almost strident voice too it’s place.  

Bond considered his mental faculties.  Perhaps he was finally going crazy.

“Oh my god.  I--what do you even mean?  Corrupt--you can’t _corrupt_ my spells.  You can’t do it.  It cannot be done.  I am a damned powerful magus, and a damned good spellcaster, and if you’re insinuating that some.  That some... _hedge witch_ ,” Q spits the taste of the word onto the floor of the workshop.  He missed the flinch Bond made at his words, “might be able to affect the wholeness of my spells--I seal them when I’m done making them!  I close them; they can’t be interfered with!”  Q’s eyes narrow.  “My reputation, my spells are NOT to be played with!  They’re NOT toys!  You absolute,” he fishes blindly for a word to encompass his disgust, “ _tit-face_.”

Bond backed up a step, hands coming up in a calming manner, but there’s something in his face.  Q could see it, but he doesn’t know what it meant and Bond is speaking and Q is trying to come down off his angry, magical, soap box.

“It’s what I do.  I add a couple strands of my hair, and it doesn’t make me a hedge witch, you stuck up, second rate sorcerer’s apprentice!”  Bonds voice snapped out, a heated edge rising, burning across Q with his insult.  His eyes narrow, focusing on Q.

“Second rate!  As if...wait...you do what?”  Distracted, Q stops short, poleaxed; it makes a sort of sense.  He crafts each spell for the agent meant to use it, though he’s never had one add his own biomatter to the spells before.  With Bond’s propensity to blow things up, of course his hair would induce an explosion.  It’s an intriguing thread of research; Q’s fingers itch for his notebook to write down the idea before it flits away.  “That’s a remarkably stupid idea,” he tells Bond, voice short and dry.  “It could have—”

“Exploded?” Bond suggested and that damned smile is back and he was leaning back in.  As if Q hadn’t just doused him with a glass of verbal water.

“No, arse.  It could have not worked at all!  Intent Bond, intent.  The equipment is spelled to do it’s job.  If you change it, twist it, add to it, you can’t...I can’t guarantee that it will work for you.”  Q twisted his hand in his hair, he wasn’t sure if it was his intent to fix the damage the day had done to his hair or fix the damage Bond had wrought on his abilities.  “I’m supposed to keep you safe, damn you.  How am I supposed to do that if you ruin it?”  Q’s voice trailed off at the end, his hand wrapping tighter in his curls.  

“I don’t ruin it if it brings me back in one piece.” Bond argued calmly.

“Menace, you’re supposed to bring yourself and your equipment back in one piece.”  Q growled at Bond.  He eventually untangled his fingers from his hair.  Judging from Bond’s distracted stare, he’s made a right mess of it.   

“Surely, you could make multi-intended pieces of equipment.”

“I’m not arming you with equipment that simultaneously wards and…” Q’s voice trailed off again and it’s him this time that gets a foggy look in his eyes as his mind wraps around what Bond has suggested.  “Fine.  If you need things to explode, I suppose I can add something--for emergencies only!--that will do the trick.  You’ll stop ‘corrupting’ my spells, though, oh my god.  It’s like running a Porsche into a door because it’s locked and you lost your key.”

Bond looked smug.  The insufferable bastard.

“Out Bond.”  Q pointed to the door.  When the above mentioned insufferable bastard failed to move quickly enough, Q followed up with a threat.  “Or I’ll hex you to be obedient.”  That got Bond's attention, if his scowl was any clue.  “Go home Bond.”  Q turned away, once more absorbing himself in the equipment he was expected to craft with precision, delicacy and intent.  

“Home.”  Bond said.

And to Q, it sounded as if Bond really didn’t know what that was, much less where it was.  He was about to offer assistance, but he was slow in the offering, his mind blanking on what one said to a double-oh confused about what home was, or what one says to anyone who sounded that sad.  Q’s mouth dropped open, when he caught a glimpse of his atelier reflected in the chrome of a coffee press.  Home.  By the time he turned around to utter something silly, he’s sure it will be silly, Bond has taken his leave and is in Q’s domain no more.  

“Sad.”  Q said, with curiosity.  His brow crinkled together above his glasses.  “Sad.”  He repeated to himself.  His spells call to him, and he answers, his fingers hover, but he’s disturbed once more as a soft, salty smelling breeze blows through the atelier, ruffling the plants, rattling the pots and finally, caressing his cheek.  A shudder rolls along Q and he leaps to his feet, searching for what, he wasn’t sure, but something magical had just blown through and it wasn’t by any of his means.  

It was familiar.  He should know it.  That smell, that feel.  What is it?


	3. A Wish

It was unusual to see Bond...ever.  He normally hied himself off, to where Q knew not, but it wasn’t here and then suddenly, after one dressing down, there he was.  Poking around in Q branch, where the minions and a few newly hired under-mages worked, breaking down and creating spells for the various agents under Q’s supervision.  R supervised what she could of the magical intent, she wasn’t a magic user, but she made it up by being a technological wizard of the computer world, research and design.  His right hand man...woman...person.  

“Q?”  An under-mage called softly to him through the doorway to his atelier.

“Hmmm?”  Q gave a little sound, acknowledging the man, while still concentrating on the new warding spell for Bond.

“It’s just.  Boss.  Boss!”  The under-mage’s voice rose, finally catching Q’s full attention, he looked up from his work.

“Yes?  Uh Stevens, was it.  What’s the matter?”  Q asked, his attention pulling at him to return to his spells.

“It’s 007, sir.”  Stevens blurted out hastily, he leaned further into Q’s sanctum.  “He’s here, he’s, I think he’s threatening Perkins.”

Q mouthed the name, “Perkins?”

“Yes, yes, he’s new and 007’s found him and Perkins has been cornered and 007 took his spell-”

“Took his spell!?”  Q’s voice rose with indignation.  He set the warding spell down and then set another spell to protect it against inquisitive fingers.  Dammit, he’d had to do that too many times this week.  “No one takes my under-mages spells.  Show me.”  Q stalked forward, sweeping past Stevens, who hurried after him.

“Over there...no wait.  They were there!”  Stevens pointed to Perkins workstation, cluttered with disassembled weapons and radios.  “They were!”  Stevens turned around, searching, searching, but he couldn’t see what Q saw.  A glass of water, where there should be none.  Water wasn’t allowed in the under-mage area of Q-branch, ever.  There were too many variables, spells would wash away or be neutralized.  The under-mages had strict protocols regarding water and other beverages.  Even Q had to drink his beloved tea outside of the epicenter of the branch.

Q lifted the glass, he sniffed it cautiously, there was a faint odor.  Another sniff, a flick of a tongue and then he was making a face.  Salt.  

“Sir?”  Stevens asked, fear in his voice.

“It’s salt water.”  Q murmured.

As if bitten by a snake, Stevens face opened wide into a horrified expression.  “How...Sir, I would never, Perkins didn’t have any…”

“I believe you.  The cameras would have evidence for us.  I suggest we review the footage and find Perkins and 007.”  Q’s hand clenched around the glass.  He brought it up to eye level and peered into its clear depths.  Sure enough, there were a few strands of hair floating in it.  “Bond.”

Q stood with compressed lips in front of the monitors that Stevens was busy playing back the footage from Q-branch.  They saw Bond walk in and place the glass down on Perkins workstation.  The young man looked startled at the glass and at having a double-oh appear at his elbow.  After that...Bond glanced once around, scratched innocently at his head and then...they were gone.  

Perkins was later found wandering around in one of the more remote R&D labs, unsure of how he got there or what spell he had been working on.  

Q’s lips practically disappeared.  “Magic is rare in these halls.”  What had M known that she hadn’t shared with him.  Too late to ask now.  Q’s shoulders rose and fell on a deep sigh.  There was something in Bond.

And of course, now, that damned agent was nowhere to be seen.  He disappeared for days on end this time.  Eventually news of Mallory ordering him on rest trickled down to Q and he put two and two together.  A bored agent.  A bored...possibly water-based, magical, bored agent had been slinking around Q-branch and borrowed a few items to play with.  Now Q’s curiosity was caught, full tilt.

“Regret is unprofessional.”  Q murmured to himself, oh how the former M’s words always seemed to hit home at the wrong time.  “I’m going to regret, aren’t I?”  Q asked no one but the air.

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

_Find me…_

Bond could not ignore the call.  God damned sirens.  He bet it was a siren.  Except, the call led him back to Q-branch, one dark and dismal day.  He said goodbye to his cats that morning.  “Only temporary lads, I’ll be home soon.”  They meowed and twined about his legs, but they let him leave.

The rain was in the air and the mist attached itself to his face.  He made a wish and the water washed off.

Perhaps…

Perhaps, nothing.

And so, he found himself once more outside Q’s atelier, a cramped and cozy place, not deep and yawning like the sea.  

“So how does this all work?  Did you, I don’t know, make a covenant or something?  Sign His black books?  Do you dance naked in the woodlands?” Bond asked, peering into the darkness at Q’s slender shoulders, hunched over another jumbled workspace.

That earned him a sigh and a low grumble.

Q didn’t even glance up.  He’s used to, people’s vaguely offensive ideas about what it is he does.  Some days he regrets rescinding his request not to arm Bond, but mostly he just shakes his head and moves on.  In a calm and steady voice, that was only slightly distracted with his task at hand he replied, “I learned it from my father.  He learned it from, I don’t know, the library or something?”

“And you called me a hedgewitch.” Bond said, his voice quiet but there was a bitter undertone.

“What?”  Q asked, distracted from recounting his lineage.

“You’re not borne of an ancient line of witches stemming back to the days of Babylon?” Bond asked, and how dare he sound disappointed by that?

“My family’s from Bedfordshire,” Q tells him drily.  

And then Bond was pierced by a steady green gaze, exploring his nooks and crannies.  “I would hazard to guess that you’ve got more ancient witchy blood in you than I have—‘Double double oh, toil and trouble,’ and all that.  It’s a skill.  I could teach it to someone if they had a natural talent for it.”  Q hinted, he hoped Bond would confide...but that was a long shot of a dream.  Possibly a nightmare, Q thought, becoming distracted again.

Bond ignored the ‘natural talent’ comment and instead, strolled steadily towards Q.  

“Teach me.” Bond said, wholly predictably.

“Not on your life,” Q retorted, just as he’d determined that no, possible water witch or no, teaching Bond to blow things up was a bad idea.  A very, very bad idea.

“I could—” here, Bond makes a vaguely arcane gesture that looks like he’s pretending at some sort of martial arts, “--and enemies to the crown would just fall to the side.”

“That’s not how the force works,” Q said.  Again.  They’ve had this conversation before; Bond’s eyes sparkle and Q tries not to sigh again.  “No, you do your job and I’ll do mine.  You don’t have the concentration needed to be a witch, anyway.”

There was that something that passed across Bonds face again, but Q is absolutely shite with social interactions, so he ignored it.  It's not like Bond was into braiding hair and swapping stories about lives past, whoops, he's a bit wrong, as Bond spoke.

“You might be my quartermaster, who makes charming, useful equipment.  We trade a few bits of verbal efforts, but don't think you know me.”  Bond’s voice is soft and deadly.

Curious, Q’s attention is caught.  “Do you have a magical ability Bond?”

Bond gives no answer.

“Bond?”  Q asks once more, he rises from where he is sitting.  If Bond has an ability, no matter how much Q wishes he didn’t, he still needs to know.  

“See you next mission, Q.”  Bond says, he smooths his cuffs down, like an offended cat, and leaves Q gaping after him.

“That damned man.”  Q whispered, fascination and dread warring within him.

_FIND ME…_

_FIND ME…_

_FIND ME..._

Bond woke with a start, the kittens scurried from him.  He reached for the spare Beretta he kept behind the mattress.  Something was wrong.  He knew it, he could feel it.  Something hurt.  He was bleeding all over again and this time, he felt it, in a million little places.

_FIND ME…_

_FIND ME…_

_FIND ME..._

This time, he was awake when the words hit him with force, nearly knocking him back down onto the bed.  Fuck.  Something was calling to him, he was certain now, whatever this was, was not wishful thinking.  It had been with him from the beginning.  His eyes narrowed, friend or foe, did he need to cast it out?  The sound of his work mobile further shattered the remaining peace of the night.

“007, the Quartermaster missing.”  Tanner’s voice spoke quietly over the line.  “M wants you to come in.”

He needed to hear no more.  He hung up on M’s right hand man, without replying.  He continued to bleed as whatever it was called to him, cried to him to find him.  It was Q, it had to be Q.  It was always Q.

Moneypenny’s soft smile met him from her desk, dark circles under her eyes, but her dress and wit were just as sharp as ever as she called to him as he flew right past her.  “M will see you now, of course.”

Bond paused on the threshold and let her do her job of seeing him in.  She may or may not have been laughing at him, but he at least, treated her to a small smile as she didn’t stab him on her way by.

He was impatient with Mallory, as he walked him through the situation.  R was in charge of Q-branch, the wheels still turned, but they were down their strongest Mage, the under-mages could keep whatever Q had left up and running, but the heart, the hands, the intent...wasn’t there.  Bond knew his impatience showed, he didn’t need to be told that Q-branch was cracking.  He knew it, they knew it, Mallory finally sighed and rolled his head around on his neck.  

“And so, that’s what we have.  We assume an 8 hour lead.”

“You waited for hours, before you sent for me?  For anyone?  He’s the Quartermaster for Christ’s sake!”  Bond snapped out.  

Mallory sighed and met Bond’s gaze.  “No one knew he was missing, until he didn’t report for work this morning.  R’s done her best to track his last whereabouts.  We called you when we realized...Bond?  Bond?”  Mallory called to the back of the disappearing agent.

“I know how to find him.”  

Mallory stood stunned.  “How?  007, report!”

Bond’s shoulders rose to his ears at Mallory’s doors.  He knew what that meant.

“I have my own ways.”  This was all he could give him, all he had.

He snagged Moneypenny’s water bottle off her desk, to the tune of “HEY!”  and made his way to the depth of Q-branch, R watched him with some suspicion.  When he made a beeline for the Quartermaster’s atelier, she planted herself right in front of him.

“What do you think you are doing?”  She asked, her arms spread wide, the orange of her hair stood out against the dark bricks.

“Finding Q.”

“He’s not here, you know that.”  R said.  “Leave his stuff alone, he’s not here to fix what you might blow up.”

“I need a bit of Q for this.  Let me pass, R.”  Bond said, his voice soft and pleading with Q’s second-in-command.  She only meant to help, but if she didn’t move, he’d move her.

“Alright.  But I’m watching, always watching.”  R moved her hand between her eyes and Bond.

Bond let out a bark of laughter.  “Maybe you want to watch this, then.”  He lifted the water bottle.

“Hey, you can’t have that in here, no water allowed!”  R lunged for the bottle but was brushed aside as Bond bowled past her.  

He entered the atelier and looked around.  Ah!  Q’s spare glasses, perfect.  Better than a spare, nasty, atrociously patterned cardigan.  He upended a stone bowl and poured the water into it.

“Impress me, Bond.”  R whispered over his shoulder.  She pushed her own frames up her nose.  

He pulled a few sea salt packets out from an inside pocket and sprinkled them over the water.  Using the spectacles, he stirred the concoction, dropping them in as the final thing.  

“Little glasses in the sea, find what belongs to me.”  Bond said softly.

The water darkened and R let out an appreciate “Ooooo.”  It bubbled and frothed, waves billowing as what was in the bowl became a miniature stormy sea.  He felt R’s hand grip his bicep as the bowl almost rocked.  

_FIND ME.._

_FIND ME…_

_FIND ME..._

R breathed out and chanted a short playground ditty.  “Witch, witch, you’re a witch!”

The side of Bond’s mouth curled up and he repeated himself.  “Little glasses in the sea, find what belongs to me.”  This time, R said nothing, she only looked at him, he could see thoughts passing across her face, but he had no time for them.  He refocused on the stone bowl.  The water calmed and the dark remained.  Images flashed across the surface until they landed on Q’s face.

“I know where that is!”  R whispered harshly, he felt her leave him and run out into Q-branch, marshalling the technology of the branch and the magic of the undermages.  He could hear her yelling at both Mallory and Tanner over the comm system.

R said nothing to Mallory about what Bond had done.  

“That’s up to you,” she had said, “I know how you like your secrets.”

“Belongs to me.”  Bond repeated slowly to himself, alone in the atelier.  He caressed the beaten image of Q reflected in the water, before ruining the effect and retrieving the glasses.  He would need those later.

A special recovery unit was being put together.

Mallory would have no use for him.  One lone double-oh, who had done his job.

Q was returned, but only to medical, Mallory wouldn’t let him resume his Quartermaster duties until he had been debriefed and had recovered enough.

Bond found him, plucking at the bedsheets and squinting at a magazine held too closely to his face.  A face that had had an unfortunate run in with a fist or blunt object, several times.  Bond would soon find out with what and who had been on the other end, they would pay.

“You’ll go blind that way.”  Bond said, he pulled the spare pair of spectacles out of his jacket.  

“007.  What brings you here.”  Q asked, he set the magazine down and squinted at Bond’s approach.

“It seems, that you have brought me here, or wished me here, I haven’t been able to tell yet.”  Bond said.  He held the glasses out to Q.

“I see someone has been snooping in my belongings.”  Q said, but he was smiling at the offered gift.  His fingertips brushed along Bond’s hand.

“Someone had to find you.”  Bond sat on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on the other side of Q’s legs.  

Q graced him with a smile.  “I’m glad they did.  R was faster than I expected.  And you found my spare spectacles I see.  Did you enjoy your time snooping around?”

“Always.  Did R say anything to you?”  Bond asked.

Q looked confused.  “No, she just stopped by to give me a noogie and that she’d send someone with my glasses soon.  Why?”

Bond traced patterns in the sheets.  “I found you, by my own magic and by someone else’s magic.”  

Q froze at the words, his words grew chilly and quiet.  “Who else’s magic would you follow?”

Bond was still looking at the sheets, but his eyes rose at the possessive tone that was new in Q’s voice.

“Yours.”

Q deflated, like a cat that had been dropped in the water.  “What?  They had it so I couldn’t create spells, I couldn’t send anything to anything.  I don’t understand.”

Bond sighed.

“And what magic do you have?”  Q asked, he got back on track.  “I’ve never seen you do magic, other than mess mine up.”

Bond smiled.  “My magic is...water based.  I don’t...haven’t practiced it unless I really need to.”

“Like when you need to blow things up and my spell wasn’t intended to do that.”

“Just so.”

“Water based.”  Q said slowly.  “To tell the truth, I had a suspicion, but it’s hard to prove.”

“I’m a sea-witch.”  Bond said, revealing who he truly was to someone who might understand.  He frowned at Q’s response, which was a great belly laugh.

“A sea-witch!”  Q exclaimed, when he could breathe.  “OH, that makes so much sense, you can’t even imagine the relief.  And it makes so much sense, what with your Naval career.  Couldn’t stay away from the water, could you?”

“No.”  Bond responded wryly.  It was nice to see Q laugh.  “But I also couldn’t stay away from something that kept calling me.”

“The sea?  I hear it does that.”  Q said, “we can look into that if it bothers you.”

“We.  No, Q.  There was something else, calling to me, it’s been calling to me since well, since I don’t know, years, ages, an eternity?  Forever?  No, that’s not right.”  Bond’s voice faded.

“It’s not just the sea?”  

“If I said it was a voice, would that scare you?”  Bond asked, he watched Q sharply.

“What sort of voice?”  Q asked, his curiosity caused him to lean forward and study Bond.

“I’m not sure.  It’s pleasant.  It’s familiar, yet not, like I know them, but don’t.  I think it’s you.”  

Q leaned back, surprise in his eyes.  “Me?  I haven’t said anything to you, I haven’t even hid any ears on you.  What does it say?”

“Find me, find me, find me.  I used it to find you, along with your glasses, in the spell I made.”  Bond said.  “Maybe it was you.”

Q got quiet, his brain churning.  “I.  It might.  Oh dear.  Oh, Bond.  I’m so sorry.  I didn’t...I don’t think I knew...I was a child.  I’m sorry.  Forgive me?”

“For what?”  Bond’s brows dropped as he studied Q’s fluttering hands and red face.

Q got it together and then explained.  “It was probably one of the first spells I made, as a child.  I didn’t know it would even work.  I just...it was after a long day of playground bullying.   I mean, I shouldn’t have taken anything they said to heart, but…”

“Words hurt.”  Bond finished for him.  

“They do, they can, words are full of intent, whether we mean them or not.  I had this old shell, I got from somewhere, Da always said it was from a family vacation, but I can’t remember it.  Probably got it from a shop in town.  Anyways.  One day, I made a wish…”  Q’s voice trailed off.

“In a shell.  A little witch upon the hedge made a wish into a shell and it found it’s way to a broken down, old sea witch.”  Bond said.  

Q let out a huff of laughter.  “Well, when you put it that way, it does sound silly doesn’t it.  Wishing for something of your own, to find you.  I mean, why wouldn’t I put in the effort to find them?”  

 “Perhaps that was your effort and perhaps I was too stubborn to listen.”

“But did it have to be you?”  Q asked, his voice teasing to take the bite out of it.  He placed his hand on Bond’s and traced the scars and blunt nails.  

 “It had to be me.”  Bond said, he pulled Q’s fingers to his face and placed them along the bristle of his chin.  “No one else would have you.”

 Q laughed, brightly, but then he sobered as he brought up his other hand, to stroke along the stubble, the ears, nose and brows of Bond’s face.  “You are damaged.”

 Bond’s head turned to the side, at Q’s indrawn breath and look of sadness, Bond suspected that Q thought he would refuse him for a moment, but instead, Bond surprised him with a small brush of a kiss against his fingertips.  “I am damaged.”  He murmured into those youthful hands.  “And so are you.”

 “I can’t kiss a soul better.”  Q said, his fingers traced along the edges of Bond’s lips.

And to Bond, that was the most honest start of any relationship he had begun.  “Neither can I.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
